Oath of Honor

something to read.”

“It never occurred to me I’d need it.”

Evyn laughed. “Oh, you’ll have plenty of time to kill on this

assignment. I recommend an e-reader. Travels easily and holds up

well.”“I’ll make a note of that.”

Evyn closed the door and disappeared inside along with several

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other agents. Wes settled back to wait, watching out the window. No foot

traffic. An occasional car passed along the drive. She wasn’t sure where

they were. The uncertainty heightened all her senses. Her pulse was a

little faster than usual, and tension in the back of her neck indicated her

blood pressure was probably slightly higher than normal too—nothing

to worry about as long as the tension didn’t escalate into anxiety, which

blunted response time. A certain degree of stress augmented essential

reflexes. She felt on edge but sharp. The way she needed to be.

An hour passed before the main doors of the building opened and

Evyn walked out, followed by the president and a phalanx of agents.

A blur of motion cut across Wes’s field of vision, shouts erupted, the

loud crack of gunfire shattered the quiet. Evyn crumpled, the president

staggered, and Wes grabbed her FAT kit and bolted from the SUV

along with a sea of agents from the other cars. Agents converged on the

president, others swarmed a young man holding a pistol and dragged

him to the ground. Wes raced up the sidewalk, scanning the injured,

automatically triaging. Only those who would die without immediate

attention could be treated. Those who would die despite emergency

care and those who would survive without it were passed over.

Evyn lay on her back, eyes closed, the collar of her shirt soaked

in blood. Neck or chest wound—likely fatal without urgent treatment.

Another agent, a man she didn’t recognize, curled on his side, clutching

his abdomen. A second potential fatality. The agents with the president

pushed past her toward the vehicle she’d just vacated. The president

seemed to be moving under his own power—injury status unknown.

Without medical treatment, Evyn and the other agent would likely die.

Wes stared at Evyn—she was still breathing, but for how long?

Ignoring her instincts, ignoring all her training, she ran for the SUV

with the president inside and jumped into the back. The doors slammed

shut, tires screeched, and they jolted forward. The president was supine

on the rear seat, and the duty nurse already had an oxygen mask on his

face. Bracing one arm against the side of the speeding vehicle, Wes

dragged the FAT kit closer. “Status?”

“GSW to the leg,” Thompson, the nurse, replied.

“You,” Wes said to the closest agent, pulling gauze from the field

trauma kit, “hold this over the wound, press hard.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

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“Get us to the nearest trauma center.” She didn’t wait for an

answer. After grabbing a stethoscope, she pushed closer and slid a hand

behind the president’s back to check for any wounds she couldn’t see.

Nothing else. The leg wound was the only injury, but in that area, if he

didn’t bleed out, he could lose his leg. She found an intravenous pack

in the kit and tossed it to another agent. “Hold this up.”

“Got it.”

She quickly connected intravenous tubing to the bag, opened the

line and let the fluid run down, and clamped it off. With scissors, she cut

the president’s coat and shirt sleeve up to the level of his shoulder and

wrapped a tourniquet around his arm. As she unwrapped a large-bore

intravenous catheter, an agent gripped her wrist.

“I think you can hold up there, Doc.” He grinned. “Dave here is

afraid of needles and we wouldn’t want him to faint on us.”

Thompson removed the O2 mask, and the agent playing the

president grinned at her. He could pass for Andrew Powell at a distance,

but this close, she could see he was younger and a little heavier. “How

are you feeling, Mr. President?”

“I’m doing great, Doc. So are you.” The presidential double pushed

up on the seat and swatted at the man holding the compression dressing

on his groin. “Let up there, will you? My toes are falling asleep.”

The agent holding the gauze laughed, said something into his

microphone, and the vehicle slowed. “Nice work, Doc. We’d be arriving

at the trauma center about now with the president stabilized.”

“What about the two we left behind?” Wes asked, thinking of

Evyn and the blood running down her throat. Everything in her rebelled

against leaving a dying patient in the field.

His grin faded. “They’re not your concern.”

“Understood.” Methodically, Wes packed up her kit, the image of

Evyn bleeding to death on the sidewalk burning in her mind. The next

time she had to leave her behind might not be an exercise. She wasn’t

sure how to square that with her conscience, or her ethics, or her heart.

v

“Nice job, Doc.” Vince, the agent who had assisted Wes during

the resuscitation of the “president,” veered off toward the ready room,

leaving Wes alone.

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